My family loves camping. It’s a great wholesome family vacation and we spend anywhere from a weekend to a whole week camping every summer! This involves a lot of gear and there have been too many times to count that we got to the campground and had to buy some essential item we had accidentally left at home. Last summer I decided enough was enough and I created a master camping list in an unused traveler’s notebook I had. Today I’m going to share it with you. Even if your family doesn’t camp you could make something similar for any vacation you take!

(See all the fun we have 😊)

When I first decided to make this list, I started writing down on a piece of printer paper everything I could think of that we needed for camping. It soon became clear that I was missing A LOT and this was not the most efficient way to go about this. I needed to wait a few weeks until we actually went on a camping trip. I had recently bought large foot lockers to store the majority of our camping gear in, but they were mostly just a jumble of items that we packed where they fit. There was some organization but I needed more! So, we went camping and when we came home I took over the living room with ALL of the camping gear. I jotted down what we kept in the foot lockers, things we needed to pack each time, and things that we needed to buy. As I went through these lists I thought about how to pack each thing efficiently so it made sense once we got to the campsite too! You can see my messy thought process but it was an essential step to getting my final master camping list together.

I ended up deciding there would be a few different categories in my notebook. I wrote these on the first page so that I could quickly and easily find them. Camping year after year means that now we don’t generally need to buy anything, but things like batteries need to be checked regularly! I also found that the 3 foot lockers weren’t enough and we needed a few other totes to keep gear in. We bring the actual foot lockers camping with us but these extra totes have soft items that just get thrown in the car when we leave!

Each foot locker has its own list and they are numbered up in the attic (just in case we are searching for an item off-season). Most of the items stay in there all the time but a few things get added right before. These are things like cooking utensils- since I just bring my regular ones that I use all the time. A few things have moved as well and so I’ve made a few changes as we used the list. At the end of the notebook I keep a wish list and a to-do list. Things on the wish list I keep my eye out for sales over the winter or I hint at around the holidays to my husband! Lastly, I keep a brief log of each camping trip and the fun things we do!

I hope this list helps you create a vacation notebook! Whether you are camping or staying in a 5-star hotel staying organized makes packing quick and efficient. Creating my own list was much more personalized than traveling lists that you can buy pre-made, although it took a bit of work to get set up. Follow me on Instagram @BMooreLuvn to see pictures from my family’s camping adventures!